KENT—A sentence handed down in a New Haven federal court Friday, Dec. 6, has finally put an end to a bizarre, almost Agatha Christie-like, incident that took place at the home of multi-millionaire Anne Bass in South Kent 17 years ago.
Yes, the butler did it, but with the help of three co-conspirators.
The last of those co-conspirators, Stefan Alexandru Barabas, 38, pled guilty to conspiracy to interfere with commerce by extortion on June 18 and was sentenced on Dec. 6 to seven years in federal prison by U.S. District Judge Jeffrey A. Meyer.
Barabas was a fugitive until his arrest in Hungary in August 2022; he has been detained since his arrest.
Barabas, Emanuel Nicolescu and Alexandru Lucian Nicolescu, wearing masks and brandishing knives and facsimile firearms, entered Bass’ home on the night of April 15, 2007. The intruders bound and blindfolded Bass and Lethbridge, injecting each with a substance the intruders claimed was a deadly virus.
The intruders ordered the victims to pay $8.5 million or else they would be left to die from the lethal injection.
When it became clear that the victims could not immediately meet the intruders’ demands, the intruders drugged the two residents with a sleeping aid and fled in the homeowner’s Jeep Cherokee. All they took were the contents of a safe that contained Bass’ ex-husband’s wallet, a diary and about $6,000 in cash.
Bass’ toddler grandson was asleep in the house throughout his grandmother’s six-hour ordeal. She was caring for the two-year-old because his mother was expected to go into labor soon with her second baby.
Barabas, a Romanian national, and his fellow conspirators—including driver Michael Kennedy—fled the United States during the 2007 investigation.
According to a Justice Department release, on April 21, 2007, an accordion case washed ashore in Jamaica Bay, N.Y. The contents of the case included a stun gun, a 12-inch knife, a black plastic Airsoft gun, a crowbar, syringes, sleeping pills, latex gloves, and a laminated telephone card with the South Kent address of the victims.
In 2010, an investigator from the Connecticut State Police connected a partial Pennsylvania license plate, seen by a witness near the victims’ estate on the night of the crime, to a car owned by Kennedy. Kennedy had formerly shared an address with Emmanuel Nicolescu.
Nicolescu had formerly been the house manager on the Bass estate. During the home invasion, the perpetrators had shown intimate knowledge of the layout of the house, according to news reports at that time.
The investigator then discovered that the data for the cell tower near the New Rochelle, N.Y., Home Depot contained a call by a phone number registered to Emmanuel Nicolescu, minutes after the Jeep was abandoned. Shortly after that, investigators from the State Police and FBI gathered Emanuel Nicolescu’s DNA and found that it partially matched a sample from the Jeep’s steering wheel.
As to the accordion case, investigators learned that Kennedy’s father was a professional accordion player, and witnesses later identified the knife in the accordion case as a gift given to Emanuel Nicolescu by his father-in-law.
The investigation revealed that Emanuel Nicolescu and Kennedy worked with Barabas and Alexandru Nicolescu to commit the crime. Barabas’ co-conspirators planned the home invasion, which included the research and purchase of implements necessary for the crime, such as two-way radios, stun guns and imitation pistols.
On the night of April 15, 2007, Kennedy drove Barabas, Emanuel Nicolescu, and Alexandru Nicolescu to a location near the South Kent home, and then picked them up the following morning in New Rochelle at the location where the intruders abandoned the stolen Jeep.
Barabas, the two Nicolescus and Kennedy fled the U.S. but Emanuel Nicolescu returned to the U.S. and was arrested in Illinois in January 2011. Emanuel Nicolescu and Kennedy were indicted in February 2011, and Barabas and Alexandru Nicolescu were indicted in November 2012.
On March 22, 2012, a jury in New Haven found Emanuel Nicolescu guilty of attempted extortion, conspiracy to commit extortion, and possession of a stolen vehicle. He was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison on Aug. 17, 2012.
Alexandru Nicolescu was arrested on Nov. 14, 2013, in the United Kingdom. On Jan. 8, 2016, he pleaded guilty to attempted extortion and conspiracy to commit extortion and on May 15, 2019, he was sentenced to 10 years in prison.
Kennedy, also known as Nicolae Helerea, a dual citizen of Romania and the U.S., voluntarily returned to the U.S. from Romania and, on Nov. 5, 2012, pleaded guilty to attempted extortion and conspiracy to commit extortion. On May 4, 2016, he was sentenced to four years of imprisonment.
Bass, an environmentalist, died in 2020 and the 1,000-acre hilltop estate she so carefully managed has been conserved. Lethbridge continues to live in Manhattan and Connecticut.
